


Home

by naeildo



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: F/F, Mentions of alcohol, roommates au, some guy being a dick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25820521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naeildo/pseuds/naeildo
Summary: Mina meets Nayeon in October, and again and again after that.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Myoui Mina, Past Im Nayeon/Yoo Jeongyeon
Comments: 14
Kudos: 347
Collections: Shot Thru the Heart: A Writing Collection





	Home

Walking in silence with Nayeon in these moments is always different - Nayeon is the louder of them when there are other people around, but she's peeled away at enough of Mina's defences that it equalizes when it's the two of them, Mina talking about whatever she feels like and Nayeon nodding along, eyes half-trained on her phone screen that keeps lighting up with notifications. Today Nayeon's hand is soft in Mina's own, her eyes set on the road in front of them, their footsteps in tandem. Her phone has been on silent mode ever since they left the theatre. There's a soft glow from the streetlights that cluster around them, and Mina knows even in the darkness somehow that a storm is gathering above their heads. Her hand feels damp in Nayeon's own, their palms pressed together like wet paper.

They'd thrown the popcorn box, still half-full, somewhere outside the theatre, because Mina is on a diet for her next showcase and Nayeon is overly supportive, but Mina's mouth itches endlessly now for something to occupy herself with.

"What is it?" Mina hazards, because they're nearing their apartment and Nayeon still hasn't spoken a word to her, only glanced over at her like she was trying to memorize the way Mina looked.

Nayeon hums, bringing her handbag to her front so she can fish their keycard from it. "What?" She says, in that tone where she knows exactly what Mina's asking but wants to play coy. Mina sighs exasperatedly.

"You've been so quiet tonight," she says, listing a palm across Nayeon's back. The older girl straightens ever so slightly, but Mina notices. She notices everything about Nayeon - the small half-smile that waivers on her face before dropping again, the hard grip she has around the keycard as she pressed it to the reader. The door slides open, and Mina steps over the bump that Nayeon always trips on, hand on Nayeon's elbow as an extra precaution. "Was it the movie?"

It was a harmless film, all things considered - one of the romantic comedies that Nayeon's fond of and Mina less so, but Nayeon happily joins in when she wants to watch Marvel for the tenth time, falling asleep on her shoulder. Give and take, Sana had said, one day, when she'd walked in with their chicken and found Nayeon slumped across Mina's lap, hair fanned out across Mina's knee. Still, Mina has stopped trying to predict what would affect Nayeon - she'd been inconsolable after they watched a children's movie that day, and Mina had gone out to buy her some dumplings before coming back to find Nayeon sat on the couch, hands reaching out for Mina.

"The movie was nice," Nayeon says, rounding the bend as they reached their unit. "Everything was nice," Nayeon says, and Mina can't detect anything wrong with it, follows Nayeon into the apartment.

They hang their coats on the coat rack - Nayeon first, then Mina, and when she turns around Nayeon locks the door behind her and moves forward, takes Mina's face in her hands, and kisses her. Mina can't catch her breath.

This one is different, Mina can tell, feels desperate even though Nayeon's fingers are so gentle, long enough that her thumb brushes the top of Mina's cheek endlessly, like she's asking for something but is afraid to. Mina tries to keep up, palms braced against the wall behind her to keep them in place, but soon Nayeon's hands are moving down to the loops of Mina's pants, tugging insistently enough that Mina's hips jerk forward, and it suddenly feels like too much: she pulls away, hair in her face, breath flooding into her lungs. Nayeon follows, still, but doesn't push, listing forward with dark eyes to press her cheek to Mina's, warm against Mina's own, hands on the dip of Mina's back.

"Baby," Mina tries, gently, when Nayeon pulls back enough that she can get a clear look at her face - Nayeon's eyes, fluttering closed over and over again. The flush of her cheeks, whipped up by the winter wind. The quirk of her lips downwards like she's trying not to cry. She lifts up a hand to brush at Nayeon's cheek. It brings up a ball of emotions in Mina's chest seeing Nayeon like this, open and vulnerable - it's not something that Mina wishes for her, but it's amazing, somehow, every time that Nayeon trusts her enough to open up. Mina doesn't think she'll get used to it. "What's wrong?"

"I'm so afraid," Nayeon says, into the hollow of her neck. Nayeon gets like this, sometimes, Mina knows, when work is piling on, but it's the off-season now and school doesn't start until January. All they've been doing is sitting around the house.

"Of what?"

"I don't know," Nayeon says, quietly. "How beautiful you looked just now. Me. How much I love you when I didn't mean to at all. With the way I ruin things, Minari, I just think sometimes that this is all going to end -"

Mina kisses her again, teeth grazing against Nayeon's bottom lip, and Nayeon softens against her, pressing closer, words forgotten.

"Don't say that," Mina says, into Nayeon's neck, against the dip of her shoulder, with her hands. "Don't you dare say that."

/

They'd met in late October.

Mina's apartment had come down with an incredible infestation of termites that had eaten some of her textbooks before she noticed, and she had terminated the lease a day later. The new three-room apartment that Mina found was even closer to her uni than the first, even if it was for a slightly steeper price, but Mina had very few options; plus, the girl who showed her around was Japanese, the place seemed extremely pest-free, and it was a four-girl dorm, something her parents could grudgingly accept even if her mother had offered to fly over as a safety precaution.

Mina was in that awkward stage of trying to look like she was independent while still relying on her parents for Uni funds, so she had refused, but promised to fly back in spring.

"You should ask for damages," Momo said, heaving the box up on her knee again as they walked up to the apartment. Momo was a senior that Mina had met in their university dance club, and she generally spoke too much in Japanese and very little in Korean, which wasn't much help for Mina as she was trying to learn the language. But Momo was a lot of other things, too - kind, and impossibly talented, and, also, perfect for this particular day: really, really strong.

"I think the lawyer fees wouldn't be worth it, Momo-chan," Mina had said, catching a book that was sliding out of the top of her box with her cheek, and Momo launched into another spate of Japanese before she was interrupted by a loud voice.

"Shit, sorry, I should've just waited for you outside, this looks heavy," Mina was still wrestling with the errant book before the offending item was removed from before her eyes, and a girl stared back, eyes wide, her hair pulled back by a huge scrunchie. Mina felt the weight in her arms lessen.

"Good afternoon," the girl said in poor-sounding Japanese, voice bright. Mina expected that it would be all she'd know, but she steamrolled on, grinning to reveal a row of white teeth, bunny teeth sticking out at the front. It was charming, somehow. "You are Mina! I am Nayeon!"

Mina didn't have the heart to tell Nayeon that what she'd just said would have been considered incredibly rude; instead, she just nodded and watched as Momo sniggered a little out of the corner of the her eye, and then noticed that Nayeon's arms were already straining under the weight of her belongings.

"Let me," she said, in Korean, and reached out to grab the box again before Nayeon moved it out of her reach. The other girl's grin was even wider, if possible, reaching up to her eyes that curled into crescent moons.

"Welcome home!" Nayeon said, boisterously, peeking at the ink-smudged side of her hand, and Mina exchanged a glance with Momo - the other girl looked utterly amused, but her eyes softened a little at whatever it was that was flickering across Mina's face. What was it? Mina imagined it was the look that came onto her face when she heard the first first notes of her favourite song sounding through the empty bathroom, soap in her eyes, the same pitter-patter of her heart.

"I'm home," Mina answered, to a confused-looking Nayeon, moving closer towards her. Without warning or reason, her hand reached out for Nayeon's on the side of the box, covering it with her own. "Thank you."

/

There was a lot to learn about the three occupants of the apartment, but Mina picked up quickly with Sana at her side, no matter how much the other girl was a bit of an unreliable narrator sometimes. Jeongyeon was their only responsible member before Mina came along, Sana was dutiful in most things but careless sometimes, and Nayeon was always out somewhere or another, coming home plastered and crashing on the couch.

Hanging out with Sana was nice. She spoke in rapid-fire Japanese, probably half from habit and half because it's been a while since there was someone to listen, and Mina listened to all of it, down to every detail: Jeongyeon liked to hang the cups from left to right, not right to left, and eating in the living room was okay but not in their rooms, although none of them really listened to her. The schedule to clear the trash was pinned to their notice board, and so was the wi-fi password. But all Mina's brain was circling around was what Sana said about Nayeon, and while she was cooking ramen for the both of them, Sana standing by the side and looking on intently, she asked: "What did you mean? About Nayeon?"

"Oh," Sana said, gaze softening. Sana had a kind of effervescence to her that Mina was still getting used to, but Mina was also learning that she was surprisingly thoughtful, and her lips twisted intently as she thought of what to say. Mina tended to the egg she'd cracked into the pot just to have something to do, and poured out their food into two bowls as Sana began to speak again.

"Nayeon is really, really kind," Sana said. "It's not her fault that her friends," then she stopped herself, wincing. "They’re just - they like doing crazy things sometimes. It’s not that it’s bad that Nayeon does, or likes it, either. It just - has - created some problems," Sana said, and Mina knew that was the most she could push it for the day. Sana frowned.

"Nayeon is one of the best people I've ever met. I don't ever want to make her sound awful," Sana said, then, earnestly, and with finality, and Mina let out a small laugh. 

"I got it. I'm sorry," she said, as Sana moved to set the utensils on the table. "I shouldn't be asking so many questions about someone I've barely met."

Sana waved her hand vaguely at Mina, letting out a small laugh. "She'd be happy to have someone like you," Sana said, sincerely, rubbing her chopsticks together, and Mina nodded, tearing her own pair apart.

Then Sana pulled the macbook lying on the table closer to them, flipping it open so that a Sailor Moon icon stared back at them above the display name **SANA MOON**. Mina couldn't help but giggle a little at it, but Sana seemed impervious to it, giving Mina a quick look of false exasperation before keying in her password to reveal a shiba inu desktop wallpaper.

"Now,” Sana said, signalling that the subject was finished, for now. “Would you care for some Terrace House?"

  
  


Mina didn't get to meet Jeongyeon until days later. Jeongyeon was for all intents and purposes - pleasant, but not in a cloying way, and for all of Sana's warnings about Jeongyeon being a stickler about cleanliness, she was also kind of - funny and easygoing? Jeongyeon had moved in late for the month, coming back in from some kind of fancy staycation at her sister's new house, and walked in in the afternoon, startling Mina up from where she was eating lunch at the table.

"Congratulations," Mina offered, awkwardly, as Jeongyeon explained the staycation while pulling off her shoes, Mina awkwardly standing beside her because she'd gotten off the couch to say hello and then didn't know what to do next. At this, Jeongyeon stopped talking, blinking up at her in confusion.

"Sorry?"

"Your sister's new house?" If Seoul was anything like Tokyo, Jeongyeon's sister must have succeeded in something. A big something.

Jeongyeon started to laugh. "Oh, yeah, she - got married," Jeongyeon said, smiling a gentle smile that made Mina feel immediately comfortable. Maybe she'd only imagined the eruption of butterflies in her stomach with... with Nayeon, who had disappeared after Mina made a fool of herself by being so forward on the first meeting.

Mina let Jeongyeon lead her to the dining table with a few awkward maneuvers, Mina slipping off her high chair once and Jeongyeon pretending not to notice.

"I'm glad you're with us," Jeongyeon continued, when they'd settled in, "and that Nayeon was actually there to greet you. And Sana told me you were - I mean, I guessed it from the name, too, but your Korean is really good, so I never would have known otherwise -" And there was something about Jeongyeon's tone, Mina thought, that wasn't talking about any prior appointments that Nayeon had.

"What do you mean?" Mina asked, before biting the inside of her mouth.

"You're not Japanese?"

"Oh, no, I am! I meant -" Mina said, awkwardly, and wondered why her stupid brain refused to unlatch from - "Why wouldn't Nayeon be there to greet me?"

Jeongyeon's face turned, for the first time that afternoon, strangely unreadable before she started smiling again, all bright teeth. "She forgets, sometimes," Jeongyeon said, "but I texted her enough that day. She's great at welcomes..." Jeongyeon trailed off, watching Mina carefully.

It was a strange note to start on all because Mina couldn't get her mind off a girl she'd only met once, so Mina forced herself to relax too, nodding and carrying them to the next topic. Jeongyeon was kind, and ready to listen to whatever Mina had to say about her termite infestation, making all the right noises at all the right places and screaming with laughter at others.

/

In the days following her arrival, Mina could never escape into her room for too long before someone was calling out for her to have some food, play a game with them, not just the ones on the computer, and Mina padded out to always find Nayeon there, too, bright eyes gazing back at her. Their game of choice was always Monopoly, and Mina learned that Jeongyeon had never won against Nayeon in her life, through some wrangling and outright blackmail from all the years that they'd known each other. Jeongyeon continued to lose to Nayeon, but Nayeon always seemed to slip up just a little so that Mina zoomed past her in the last moments - some kind of trick of the light

In any case, it was - nice. Nice to get up to prepare to go to the studio in the morning and find Jeongyeon already standing at the kitchen counter, cooking up a small meal of eggs for the both of them to share before they had to head off. Nice to come home to see Sana lying across the couch, glasses perched precariously on the bridge of her nose, her face lighting up when she registered the opening of the door.

Other than the bright bluster of their first meeting, after which Nayeon had to quickly leave for some appointment or another, Nayeon was mostly here and there, in the shadowy corners of the house if she wasn't bothering Jeongyeon or fighting for the remote with Sana. Whenever Mina entered the room she seemed to freeze up, retreating to her room. Mina had no idea what to do with that, so she left it at nothing, no matter how much something in her chest stang dully.

  
  


And then, one night she'd opened her door and found Nayeon lingering outside, the older girl snapping to attention. There were dark rings around her eyes, but the smile on her face was real and bright, and Mina struggled to keep from taking a too-short breath.

"Hi," Nayeon said, hands placed awkwardly in front of her.

"Hi," Mina said, softly, stepping over the threshold of her door before taking a step back in. "Um, do you want to come in?" She'd just cleaned her room enough to allow guests, but Nayeon had shook her head vigorously.

"I'm just. I just wanted to say that I'm here if you - need anything. I"m sorry that I haven't been of much help until now. Frankly, I have no idea what I've been doing recently either -"

"You can teach me Korean," Mina heard herself say, before she'd even meant to, and there was a kind of mortification that bubbled up in her chest. Never mind that Sana would be far better placed. Never mind that Mina didn't really know where Nayeon disappeared to, and whether she had a thousand commitments piled up. Never mind that Mina, for the first time in her life, was suddenly speaking in the most formal Korean she had ever managed in her life, rivaled only by that time she got stopped at the airport checkpoint. "I mean - only if you have time, I shouldn't have assumed -"

"Okay," Nayeon said, before Mina could finish. There was something that flashed across her face, an expression that Mina hadn't seen enough of Nayeon to understand quite yet. "I'm free - I'm free every day. Whenever you want," Nayeon was saying, right hand placed awkwardly on the back of her head, elbow out, and Mina felt a delicate fissure blossom behind her lungs, in the confined spaces between her ribs.

"Okay," Mina said, and watched the way the smile traveled across Nayeon's features - starting at the pull of her lips and moving up to the way her brows furrowed softly.

"Okay," Nayeon parroted, again and half-laughed, which made Mina's head empty out. Nayeon was staring at her.

"I'm going to - go back now," Mina said, awkwardly, and Nayeon nodded, softly, turning around before -

"Oh, unnie, I-" she called out, and Nayeon whipped around, the clip in her hair loosening. "I'll see you around," Mina said, dumbly, and Nayeon laughed then, again, loud, hand pressed to her belly, and Mina _wanted_. Closed the door and leaned heavily onto it, the back of her knees sliding against the plywood. Breathed, and watched the faint outline of Nayeon's smile flutter across her vision when she closed her eyes.

/

In the weeks that followed, there was a strange and unfortunate confluence of every free block Mina had with Nayeon's activities, and vice versa, their text conversation beginning to look like a string of failed business appointments. Nayeon would sometimes offer, while they were both getting food from the fridge, to have impromptu lessons right then and there, but Mina took one look at Nayeon's black-ringed eyes and made up something about having to get up early the next morning, which led her to have to get up early the next morning just for appearance's sake. Mina found herself doing all sorts of things, for Nayeon's sake, and she tried not to think too much about it.

 _And -_ and it wasn't really that Mina was uncomfortable with it, how close Jeongyeon and Nayeon seemed. There was a kind of ease with Sana too, but Mina knew enough to recognize something different in the way Nayeon looked at Jeongyeon sometimes, like she was a distant star even when they were pressed side by side at the dinner table, Jeongyeon laughing with her head back at something Nayeon said.

Mina didn't think she _-_ she didn't know what she thought, truthfully, but there was something strange and searing that settled through her chest whenever Nayeon looked at Jeongyeon in that way. Like Mina could never put her together the way Jeongyeon could. And it shouldn't have bothered her, but it did.

  
  


Then, on the fourth week, a knock on her door on a late Friday afternoon startled Mina from her slumber.

She'd pinned up a calendar of their schedules on her wall for convenience, and no one was supposed to be home, but Maybe Jeongyeon got off class early. She ambled to the door, hair in a lion’s crown around her head, and came face to face with a smiling Nayeon.

"Oh," Mina said, stupidly, at the same time Nayeon said "Hi."

"Why do you look so surprised?" Nayeon asked, as if she'd made a habit of knocking on Mina's door in the afternoon.

"Don't you have - um," Mina paused, because knowing Nayeon's schedule like the back of her hand would come off as too... as too _something_. "I thought you would be out til late," she decided, and instantly realized it was the wrong thing to say when something flashed in Nayeon's eyes.

"I bought some ice cream to share," Nayeon said, her voice a little cold, and Mina didn't know what to do. "It's in the fridge."

"Wait -" Mina said, because Nayeon already looked like she was turning to leave, and then Nayeon's gaze snapped back to Mina's face. Mina had come to learn that Nayeon either looked right at you or not at all, because she'd been the object of the latter for a while now. Right now, Nayeon was looking straight at Mina, the weight of her gaze turning heavy on Mina's shoulders.

"Did you have something else to say?" Mina blurted, in a spurt of bravery, and Nayeon's eyes widened ever so slowly. Then Mina did something even stranger, extending her hand out halfway so it hovered near Nayeon's arms that were crossed loosely over her chest.

"Uh - it's the new hazelnut flavour," Nayeon said, dumbly, and Mina couldn't help the smile that fought its way onto her face, watching Nayeon relax as well. "From Baskin Robbins."

"I'm sorry," Mina said, sincerely, and watched Nayeon's eyes soften. "I didn't mean that at all. Only that -"

"No, you're right," Nayeon said, gaze flickering to the ground before she looked up again, the anger in her eyes gone. "I was just being unfair. I'm sorry, Minari," Nayeon said, and Mina felt something twist deep inside her chest at the name. Nayeon had never used it before, only laughed along with Sana when she was trying to tease something out of Mina. And it sounds - different. Not warmer, but more determined, like it was a word that was making its way into Nayeon's vocabulary. "I was going to say - do you want to have ice cream with me?”

  
  


Ice cream together found Mina and Nayeon together on the couch, Nayeon sitting awkwardly on one square and Mina on the other. They hadn't found much comfort yet, not alone, but Nayeon was hunched forward in a way that at least meant she wasn't keeping her guard up.

"I always thought ballerinas had to keep a strict diet or something," Nayeon said, off-handedly, when Happy Together went for a commercial break and they were left in a stilted silence. "Shit," Nayeon said, quickly, after that, and Mina watched a red flush climb to the tip of her left ear. "Should I - I shouldn't have asked about that, I think -"

Mina felt her cheeks heating up for little reason. "I have a high metabolism rate," Mina said, softly, and Nayeon shook her head a little at that, turning to face Mina with a smile.

"I know so little about you," Nayeon said, and it seemed like she was talking more to herself than to Mina. "That's my fault, I guess," Nayeon said, and Mina was worried the commercials would end, and they would be swept back into more silence that was hardly companionable, even if it wasn't tense. "That's why I asked such a stupid question -”

"I'm glad we could do this, then," Mina said, gesturing awkwardly at the space between them, tired of Nayeon's self-deprecation, and Nayeon let out a laugh so real and so bright that Mina felt her lungs would give out. Nayeon curled her knees up to her chest so she looked suddenly smaller, and Mina stiffened in her seat just so she wouldn't do anything stupid like reach out or lean in.

"I graduated from the film club today," Nayeon said, suddenly, and Mina blinked. “Like, a handover.”

"You were in the film club?" Mina asked, even though she'd jotted it down on Sana's instructions weeks ago.

"Oh," Nayeon said, as the commercial break ended. She was still looking at Mina, as if she hadn't noticed. "Yeah, I minor in film."

This would have been the perfect opportunity to ask about her favourite films, offer her own, _anything_ , but Mina felt like she couldn't say anything, just stared with a half-smile at Nayeon, whose own smile only grew wider and wider.

"So," Nayeon sing-songed, unfolding her legs from under her, "remember that thing? About how I could help with Korean? I think -"

"Oh," Mina said, in realization.

"I'll be free from now on, at this timing, I could... if you want..."

Mina stared at Nayeon - Nayeon, hallowed in the light of the TV, loose strands of auburn hair hanging over her forehead that somehow only made her look even more beautiful, the curve of her cheeks soft under the dim glow.

"I'd like that," Mina said, softly, and felt something behind her ribs grow - a flower in the spring, a flower in the winter.

/

Nayeon majored in business and marketing. Nayeon had one younger sister. Nayeon loved the colour blue. Nayeon really liked Mina's sky blue bed sheets for that reason, and they'd ended up side by side on her bed by the end of the third lesson to take what Nayeon called a "recharging nap".

Nayeon was a surprisingly good teacher too, all things considered, even if she got distracted often by the things in Mina's room, like the cacti she'd lined up on the ledge on the wall and the green tea packets that Mina brought from home. Nayeon was - overwhelming, Mina found, in a good way, and everything seemed lighter around her. Nayeon opened up more, too, on nights where they'd study past midnight, Nayeon's eyes closing as she read out from Mina's vocabulary list.

"How long have you known Jeongyeon-unnie?" Mina ventured, one night, where they'd had pad thai for dinner and Nayeon was sweating from the chilli flakes. She'd insisted on placing a towel under her head to protect Mina's pillow from her sweat, and they'd fought over that before Nayeon had just settled for tickling her until she caved, flopping onto the bed, Nayeon hovering over her before rolling off quickly, hair in her eyes.

Mina noticed the way Nayeon's body tensed up and immediately regretted the question, but Nayeon was already turning away slightly from her on the bed, and Mina reached out instinctively to hold Nayeon's hand. The other girl clammed up even more, then, but Mina, finding some gall that lay previously undiscovered within herself, dredged out by the very presence of Nayeon lying beside her, just pressed firmly until Nayeon relaxed into her hold, fingers unfurling from the fist they'd curled into.

"Eight years," Nayeon said, finally.

"You don't have to tell me any more if you don't want to," Mina said, quickly. "I'm sorry if I overstepped." Nayeon closed her eyes and shook her head, softly, but she still said nothing when she opened them again, staring at the ceiling.

"I-"

"When we were dating," Nayeon said, and Mina felt the breath leave her lungs, felt Nayeon's cautious eyes flicker across her features, searching for something, and she seemed to relax when Mina's attentive gaze didn't falter. "She didn't like a lot of things," Nayeon said. "Not about me, but the way I lived. I was always coming home at 3am drunk out of my mind and knocking the clothes stand down." Nayeon shrugged, but there was something there - the cavalier front she had melting away, ever so slightly, revealing something dark and heavy underneath. "Made a mess of things."

"We're better as friends," Nayeon said, and Mina considered the waver in her voice. Knew that she'd be thinking of it long into the night, until sleep claimed her.

"You're very wonderful as friends," Mina affirmed, because she didn't know what else to say, and, remembering that her hand was still closed around Nayeon's, let her thumb brush soft circles against Nayeon's hand as the older girl leaned in, feet brushing Mina's shins, breath drifting past Mina's ear.

/

Mina started, against her very best instincts, to let herself be comfortable with it - the idea, the possibility of something, whatever it was that Nayeon could ever want to offer her, because Mina didn't want to be greedy. Just a sliver of her light to carry around through the days would be enough, she'd been trying to think, instead of every monstrous bit of want that consumed her in her less sober moments - Nayeon's gentle, hesitant hands on her arm becoming more. Nayeon's soft kisses to her temples going elsewhere instead. Nayeon, on her bed, hand wrapped around hers, leaning in, and Mina would let herself sink into it. Mina would let herself drown, if Nayeon would allow her that.

  
  


Then, on a Friday, Nayeon had missed their appointment, and Mina had only sent one hesitant, banal text an hour later about getting home safe, and Nayeon hadn't replied at all. She'd only stumbled in wet later, arm hooked around a harried-looking Jeongyeon who paused when she spotted Mina in the hallway, the dim light flicked on because Mina had come out to see if Nayeon had come home.

"Oh," Mina had said, softly. Of course Jeongyeon would be the one to pick her up, even after she'd just ranted at dinner about Nayeon's bad habits, and horrible ways, because -

"Mina," Jeongyeon said, gently. Mina could see the exhaustion in the slope of her shoulders. The creases around her eyes. "Sorry, could you -" Jeongyeon gestured, and Mina realized suddenly that she was standing in the middle of the hallway, between them and the shower. Because that's all she was, in the end - a stranger in their house. An intruder in their home. So she slid to press her back against the wall instead, one hand on her door handle.

"Do you - do you need -" Mina had said, at the same time Jeongyeon shook her head. At the same time Nayeon had looked up, and Mina felt something inside her collapse. Nayeon was starting to laugh, and Jeongyeon looked between her and Mina, arms more insistent around her. Hurrying her along. But Nayeon struggled against her, leaning only closer to where Mina was. And it was like - Mina could never look away from Nayeon, but she'd never wanted to more than in that moment, the moonlight slicing hollow shadows across her cheek, making her look so - harsh. So unlike herself.

"Nothing like your ex driving out to get you because you're a selfish piece of shit, isn't that right, Mina?" Nayeon heaved forward on the spot as Jeongyeon pulled at her again, shoulders set. Something like hurt flickering across her face.

"Im Nayeon -"

"And I had _you_ believing that I was good for something," Nayeon said, laughing, and Mina watched her face twist into something that she never wanted to see again. Mina didn't want to look. Wanted to shout. To scream, to take Nayeon in her arms and tell her to stop - stop believing that, stop thinking that, because Mina didn't believe anything else but that Nayeon was kind. That she was good. That she, as she was, as she wanted to be, took the ache in Mina's chest away. Slowly, and then all at once, without even knowing.

"Unnie," Mina ventured, softly, watching Nayeon's eyes dart around, unfocused, just as Jeongyeon gave Nayeon another tug that sent her stumbling down the hallway.

Jeongyeon would be peeling Nayeon's sticky clothes off her skin. Putting her under the showerhead. Loving her, like it was a habit.

So Mina went back to her room, closing the door behind her, and listened to the sound of the shower, going on and off.

  
  


Mina was stirring at her porridge on the stove and picking up a handful of sliced carrots when Nayeon walked in, a loud, whiny _Kim Sana_ cut short when she spotted Mina's small back instead.

"Good afternoon," Mina tried, after an awkward stretch of silence where it seemed that Nayeon had just been lingering in the middle of the doorframe.

"You aren't attending practice today? It's Saturday," Nayeon said, softly, and Mina told herself that it didn't mean much - that Nayeon paid enough attention to know her schedule. Probably because Mina had to end early on Fridays, sometimes, to prepare for the next day.

"Cancelled for the week," Mina said, voice even.

"Jeongyeon -" And the name in Nayeon’s mouth sent pinpricks flickering through Mina's chest. "Jeongyeon told me what I -" Nayeon sighed. There was something so formal and distant about this that was eroding every part of the comfort they'd built with each other, however fragile. However much of it was only in Mina's head. But she still fought the terrible urge to turn around. To look upon Nayeon's face and to say something horribly foolish, like _I've already forgiven you because it's you_. So she settled for scooping up her porridge into a bowl, letting the sound of the spoon against the metal pot ground her.

"I'm sorry that you had to see that," Nayeon said, finally, and Mina couldn't help the way she flinched. That's right, Mina thought. In the end, Mina was only a friend, and Nayeon had so many things that Mina wasn't supposed to see, and Mina had wilfully forced her way in.

"It’s fine," she said, instead, but couldn’t help the anger rising in her voice, and turned around to see Nayeon hunched impossibly small at the other end of the table, eyes wide as she stared back at Mina. She was picking at her nails - a nervous tic that Mina had noticed a week into being around Nayeon, even when she was falling in and out of her life, and Mina didn't know how to be angry at her. Not truly. Didn't know how to fight the raw, tender feeling flooding into her chest.

Nayeon didn't say anything. Instead, Mina heard that scratch of the chair legs against the floor. "I'll just -"

"It's not that I - I don't want to - I don't want you to hide who you are, but you're not who you think you are. You don't have to be that." She's stuttering. "So I'll - I'll stay. Until you can be yourself. Please don't say you'll stop bothering me." And maybe Mina sounded a little pathetic, or just honest, or both, but there was something awful about the way Nayeon looked at her in that moment, the gentleness of her gaze cutting through all of it. Just enough there to feed Mina's little fantasies. Just enough there to believe, somehow, that maybe - if she could ask for this, just this -

"I don't think I can," Nayeon says, blurted, as it came out in a rush. And Mina felt it. An arrow in the middle of her chest. The tip, landing in the tender flesh tucked under her ribcage.

"Okay," Mina says, and didn't move closer.

Nayeon's hand twitched at her side.

"Okay," Nayeon said, and Mina wondered if it would always be like this, and then Nayeon started to speak again. "Thank you," Nayeon said, finally, in Japanese, and Mina stopped fidgeting. "I am sorry." Nayeon was speaking carefully, like the first day they'd met. Dredging something from the recesses of her memory. "I'm trying to be better, and you can ask me anything you want," Nayeon said, reverting to Korean, and Mina couldn't help but smile, a helpless one that she shouldn't gift to Nayeon. But she couldn't help it. But she couldn't help any of this, not when Nayeon didn't need to ask to know what Mina wanted.

Mina shook her head softly, and Nayeon walked closer to her, then, peering down into Mina's pot idling on the stove.

"Not even whether that's the salt or sugar shaker?" Nayeon asked, and Mina's gaze snapped down to the shaker she was holding in her hand.

"Oh my God," Mina tried not to scream.

The smile that bloomed across Nayeon's face, heavy with a kind of penance, was small. Her hand reaching for Mina's and holding her there, softly, surely.

"Let's order in," Nayeon offered, softly. "My treat."

/

Nayeon's form of penance was updating Mina on her every move the moment she woke up on Friday morning. Mina's phone buzzed every ten minutes or so with another awkward shot of Nayeon's daily activities, including her washing up in front of the mirror, and Mina tried not to laugh out loud in class when Nayeon sent a picture of the ice cream cone she'd dropped in the middle of campus, Jeongyeon clutching at her stomach at the edge of the frame.

"Minari?" Nayeon had her head stuck in through the gap between the door and the doorframe, and Mina hastily closed the video she was watching on her laptop about cross-stitching, her heart leaping into her throat at the name. It was a terrible habit.

"What's up?" Mina said, voice too high.

"I was thinking - um," Nayeon said, and there it was, the characteristic hesitation again. Mina swiveled around in her chair and slid forward to where Nayeon was, staring up at her through her eyelashes. Nayeon had a towel wrapped around her head, face scrubbed clean of makeup. Mina had seen it before, of course, but somehow the afternoon glow cast different shadows on her face, making butterflies erupt in Mina's stomach. It was all so inconvenient, these feelings.

"I have a dinner with my class that might end late, so I don't think I can teach you tomorrow. But I was thinking if - you'd want to join me?"

"Me?" Mina said, standing up from her rolling chair.

"It'd be good to practice your Korean around people who talk way too much," Nayeon teased, and Mina could pinpoint where her apprehension had turned into excitement, a bright smile splitting across her face.

"Would they mind? I mean, do they know who I am?" Mina asked, and felt awfully strange about the phrasing. She wasn't anyone to have, or to bring along, and Nayeon was just being friendly and inclusive. Mina wasn't going for a meet-the-friends session, and she thought about the dance practice she had early in the morning the next day and the unfinished pile of homework staring at her from her desk.

"A girl as pretty as you," Nayeon said, laughing, bracing her hands against Mina's arms before leaning in to press a kiss to Mina's cheek, "they’d kill me for not inviting you sooner."

And Mina should have responded, and should have said something, but all she could feel was the heat licking down from her cheek to her neck, the ringing in her ears reaching a high.

  
  


Mina had caught Nayeon at the door, while she was toeing into her sandals and stuffing emergency pads into her bag. And then she’d asked about the dress code for the party and then promptly bit her lip when she realized how stupid it sounded, but Nayeon had laughed, soft and fond, and Mina had felt the apprehension that had wound up in her stomach fritter away in an instant, at the sight of Nayeon with one sandal half-worn, a dopey smile on her face.

“It’s at this corner shop down the street from the uni. You’ll be overdressed even in your pajamas.” Nayeon paused to zip up her bag. 

“I-” Mina tried, because they’d already have to accommodate the language barrier in addition to her intruding, and - 

“They’ll love you, Minari,” Nayeon said, with the confidence she always had, the smile on her face hard to ignore, leaning forward like she wanted to reach out to Mina instead of go to the class she was already late for. “I promise.”

/

The walk from the subway station was awfully quiet. Nayeon had tried, here and there, to kindle a conversation, but Mina was a little too nervous for it, and Nayeon had let her be, then, her hand warm over Mina’s as she took it within her own.

It wasn’t the first time Nayeon had held Mina’s hand, but it was the first time she had lingered. The first time they’d walked together, hand in hand, in the middle of the street.

“Your hands are too cold,” Nayeon said, and Mina could hear the fuss in her voice. Looked up to see Nayeon smiling at her as her fingers tightened around Mina’s.

“Yours are very warm,” Mina returned, because she didn’t know what else to say, and Nayeon broke out into a laugh then. As snow caught onto the fabric of her beanie when she pulled it off to pull it over Mina’s head. As spring, in all its warmth, flickered into Mina’s chest at the crooked shape of Nayeon’s smile.

There were barely enough seats at the table for them, when they’d stepped through the low door frame and into the thick heat of the restaurant. Loud, dated music was playing from all sides, and Mina felt herself start to panic as Nayeon’s friends waved them over.

“Unnie,” Mina tried, jerking away a little as Nayeon refused to let go of her hand. “I need to take off my scarf.”

“You need the warmth,” Nayeon said, quickly, pulling them to the cushions placed haphazardly at the end of the table, and didn’t let go of Mina’s hand until the soju came.

Nayeon was a weird drunk. Mina didn’t think she’d really seen her like this before, loose and boisterous, and she - liked it. She liked it a lot. Still, Nayeon was careful in spooning out food for Mina, and careful in introducing her, and careful in telling them again and again not to overwhelm Mina.

It wasn’t long before Mina was having fun. 

There was a vague, alcohol-induced haze to everything, and even the jokes that weren’t funny started to make her laugh uncontrollably. And Mina was a little sick of the way Nayeon kept looking at her, like she was something to be wrapped away under bubble wrap. Like Mina didn’t know about sharp edges.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you this protective, Im,” Mina heard a gruff voice say, from somewhere across the table. Mina watched the way he rubbed at his eyes, a crooked smile on his face. The music was too loud to hear what he was mumbling next, and Nayeon’s eyes flashed as she looked back at Mina.

“Just ignore him. He gets a little -”

“What happened to all that loving and leaving, huh?” He pressed, again, and the table went a little quieter. 

“Don’t do this tonight, Younghoon,” Nayeon warned, her voice going quiet in a way Mina had never heard before.

“Unnie, I’m okay -”

“What’re you gonna do later, huh?” Bring her back to that posh apartment of yours and cosy up before you -”

Nayeon was up on her feet before Mina could react, the cups of their side of the table clattering to the floor. 

Mina blinked back at Younghoon. 

“Fuck, come on, you’re no fun,” Younghoon was saying, as Nayeon picked up their things, dropping them back into her bag. She pulled out a handful of notes and placed them on the table, fingers gentle around Mina's wrist. 

“We’ll be making our way home first. Thanks for tonight.”

Mina followed her out into the cold street, Nayeon shrugging her coat and nothing much else on. The wind was whipping snow around them and making Nayeon’s ears red.

“Unnie,” Mina tried, pulling at her wrist. _I don’t care. I know you. I -_

Nayeon’s eyes were quiet and angry and a little wet when she looked back at Mina, hand stuck out to flag down the incoming taxi.

“I don’t -”

“I’ll order chicken when we get back. Sorry for - just,” Nayeon said, and she sounded so - so unlike herself that it hurt. That Mina felt a dull, horrible ache, shooting down to the ends of her fingers.

Nayeon stepped off the curb and pulled the door open for Mina. “For me. For everything.”

/

Nayeon disappeared, after that unceremonious departure from the party. She was quiet on the way home, quiet when Mina asked if she wanted her beanie back, quiet when she didn’t look back before leaving to go back to her own room.

Mina didn't see her anywhere, after that, in the hours of the day where she got tired of staring at her screen, walking up to her locked door and stared at it, then went back to her room, repeating that until Sana caught her one day, standing around aimlessly in the corridor.

"Mi-tan," Sana said, gently, pulling her back to the living room. Nayeon's shoes were already tucked neatly into the shoe rack. She'd worn grey socks on that day. "Just give her time."

"I _am_ giving her time," Mina said, a little too loudly, wondering why she was already on the verge of tears. Nayeon was just her roommate who taught her Korean. Mina shook her head as if to wake herself up. "I'm being petulant. I'm sorry."

It was as if Sana could read her mind, because she closed her own hand over Mina's, a soft, playful smile on her face. "It's harder with the people you love very much, I think," Sana said, softly.

“I don’t - I don’t know. I don’t know if I do.” 

“Do you know why Jeongyeon had to pick her up that night?” Sana asks, suddenly, and Mina blinks.

“Huh?”

“Rumours follow Nayeon-unnie all the time, and she’s mostly - she’s almost used to it, now. But it was just that there was a new one around campus about Jeongyeon, and she was - I don’t know. I didn’t hear the full extent of it, but she’s really good at blaming herself for things that really have nothing to do with her, so -”

“Oh,” Mina said, softly. Thought of her angry, ugly voice, and Nayeon’s soft, tired features.

“She’ll come back to you,” Sana said, quietly, and something twisted violently in Mina’s chest at the words.

“I don’t think - it’s not like I’m someone she has to come back to -”

“She’ll come back, Minari,” Sana said, quickly. It always felt like she was one step ahead of Mina. “I’m sure of it.”

  
  


Two days later, there were two separate knocks of three on the door - a code they'd come up with one day that Jeongyeon liked to say was for teenagers. Mina slid out quickly from her seat, breathless as she pulled the door open, and Nayeon was standing there, small, rainbow-coloured beanies in hand.

"I made some hats for your cacti," Nayeon said, holding out the beanies, palm up, and Mina felt a laugh burst out of her before she could help it - it sounded more disbelieving than mocking, which Mina was glad for as she watched Nayeon's face soften, washing away the anger that had already faded away with the past few days.

“I’m sorry for running away. And I’m sorry that you hate the beanies too, now that -”

"No," Mina said, wrapping her hand around the beanies. "I love them, I'm sorry for laughing - I just -" _I love you_ , Mina didn't say. "No one has apologized to me like this before."

Nayeon smiled, turned the little beanies around in her hand. "This one says M N," she said, before picking the other one up. "And this one says "N Y." Then she shrugged, leaving Mina to fill in the blanks, tilting her head towards the floor. She looked almost - shy. Bashful.

“And I don’t - I’m not running away anymore. I won’t.”

"Unnie," Mina said, softly, and Nayeon looked up, eyes bright. "Okay. I believe you,” Mina said, finally, and hoped that Nayeon understood what she meant. 

Something in Nayeon’s face had gone slack at those words, her hands playing with the hem of her shirt. Mina reached out to cover them, and Nayeon looked up, again, startled. Disbelieving. And Mina wanted to tell her, then, everything she thought. Everything she felt, like the sun coming up over a winter’s morning. Instead, she just tightened her hold around Nayeon’s fist, and offered the only other thing she could think of.

“Thank you."

  
  


It was a strange thing, then, that Nayeon would knock on her door on a Sunday night, neither Jeongyeon or Sana at her side to beckon her into the great unknown of their living room. Nayeon was in an off-white sleep shirt and shorts that hardly covered anything, and Mina's eyes shot back up to Nayeon's face, where the older girl had already caught on, smile crooked.

"The new _Spider Man_ just came out on Netflix," Nayeon said, before Mina could ask anything. "I know you didn't have the time to watch it, so -"

"Okay," Mina said, a little too quickly. Nayeon's eyes widened. 

"I want to watch it together," Mina said, determinedly, refusing to let Nayeon look away from her face.

  
  


And Nayeon had made Mina laugh, after that, with her movie review. About how she'd gotten every theory utterly wrong, and how Mina didn't deserve a movie partner like her, and Mina had said _no, don't say that_ a little too fiercely and insistently that it sent them into an awkward silence.

Mina was about to try and make another gentle jab about Nayeon's credit as a film minor when Nayeon turned her head so she was looking directly at Mina, cheek pressed to the duvet.

Mina was careful with the older girl's hands, tucking them gently under her own. Nayeon's face was barely visible under Mina's nightlight, her laptop long sputtering off into sleep mode.

"I'm really tired of making mistakes," Nayeon said, into the quiet, and Mina felt tears prick at the edges of her eyes. It was strange and maybe terrifying, how Nayeon's sadness became hers, too, somehow.

"I don’t - I haven’t - back then,” Mina managed, finally, after a silence so long that she worried Nayeon might have fallen asleep. Then Nayeon made a strange, wounded noise. Soft enough that Mina could ignore it for her sake, but she brushed a thumb over the skin of Nayeon’s hand, anyway. Out of habit.

“You’re a wonderful, responsible person right now,” Mina continued, slowly, trying to untangle the words inside her mouth. “And I know that you will continue to be a wonderful, responsible person,” Mina tried. Nayeon wasn’t trying to pull away, at the very least, and Mina thought to concentrate on her breathing. At the shadow dancing across Nayeon’s face, the dim light fading in and out on the sharp planes of her cheek.

“You - I -” Nayeon said, finally, voice a little wet, soft and a little raspy from the night “thank you.” 

And Mina felt the world come together and expand again all at once. Thought, somehow, that she would move mountains to see Nayeon smile again, the way she was right now, laughing at herself tearily and holding onto Mina’s hands. “Thank you.”

/

In the end, it mostly happened because Chaeyoung was there, and slurping at the last vestiges of her smoothie like she hadn't a care in the world. Mina was planning to tell - someone, soon, but she wasn't sure how to bring up the entire topic of Nayeon to Jeongyeon or Sana, and it seemed like an even more impossible task to address it with her best friend, who would have to hear about Mina liking a girl over the ocean and through a laggy screen.

So -

"I think I have a crush on my roommate," Mina said, her hands shaking as she took the ice cream cone from Chaeyoung, the other stashed into the warmth of her coat pocket. They'd just finished practice: the performance was in fifteen days, and Mina had been getting more and more jittery as the deadline creeped closer.

Chaeyoung stopped walking for a moment, turning around to face her. A bicycle whipped past them.

"Do you want to tell him?" She said, and Chaeyoung was always gentle with matters of the heart, if nothing else. Mina traced the fish tattoo on her arm that disappeared under her sleeve, and contemplated whether she was the right person to ask. To tell, even, but people hailing from the world of dance tended to be more accepting - and this was Chaeyoung, who participated in a random university rally against oppressive clothing requirements instead of studying for her finals.

"It's a her, actually," Mina said, and watched as Chaeyoung barely reacted, her heartbeat slowing down.

"Okay," Chaeyoung says, softly, and maybe Mina had been reading _her_ wrong this whole time. "Do you want to tell her?"

Mina shook her hair out of her eyes, licking a long stripe down the dollop of ice cream. "No risk, no reward, right?" She said, and Chaeyoung laughed a little at that, knowing eyes rounding upon Mina.

"If you've already decided, why are you asking me?"

Mina opened her mouth to protest, but shut it again. Truthfully, it was the only thing on the tip of her tongue whenever she was around Nayeon, and it felt so heavy and terrifying that she was sure it would slip out eventually.

"You're too perceptive for your own good, Son Chaeyoung," Mina said, finally, and Chaeyoung laughed again, head thrown back, short strands of hair catching the spring breeze.

Her smile was sly when she looked back at Mina. "Not enough to know that it was a girl."

  
  


On Friday, Mina bought hazelnut ice cream three hours too early from the convenience store and watched them melt pitifully against the mirror at the back of her class, and then brought them home to re-freeze them again, placing the noodles she’d picked up the way back on the counter. Then she waited for three more hours, picking at her cuticles and staring at the wall, the words inside her head jumbling together and pulling apart in a different way every time. And then another hour passed, and then another, until -

“You didn’t eat?” Mina heard Nayeon’s voice say, from some faraway place.

“Minari?” The voice asked again, and Mina started awake. Her arm was hanging crooked off the couch, Nayeon’s face uncomfortably close to hers.

“Um,” Mina said, voice hoarse.

“I’m gonna - I’ll heat this up for you,” Nayeon said, picking up the plastic bag dropped haphazardly onto the table.

“No, I’m -” Mina tried, face twisting into a smile as Nayeon pretended not to hear her, sweeping the dumplings out onto the plate and pressing the timer button on the microwave. She was exasperating sometimes. Most times. “It’s fine,” she exhaled softly, the breath turning into a little laugh at Nayeon’s round, mischievous face, the wide row of her teeth she was conscious about sometimes in full, magnificent view as she smiled back at Mina. 

  
  


Movie night turned into a half-hour long argument where Nayeon insisted Mina choose the movie, and Mina insisted Nayeon choose the movie, and then Nayeon had put on _Iron Man_ again until Mina smacked her hand and lunged for the laptop.

Now Nayeon was just lying next to her, chest rising and falling while the movie played in the background. Mina watched the flutter of her eyelashes against the light streaming through her window, and Nayeon’s quiet, comfortable smile that crept onto her face when she wasn’t thinking too much.

On-screen, Tony Stark had just arrived back home, stumbling off the plane into the sunlight. _“Your eyes are red. A few tears for your long-lost boss?”_ , Nayeon mouthed, looking over at Mina, the corners of her lips quirking up. 

“She didn’t even say _welcome home,_ Minari. But I guess that has to be earned,” Nayeon laughed, but there was something else there. A quiet sort of sadness that made Mina’s chest ache. 

"It's what you tell the people closest to you," Mina said, before she could think. Nayeon raised her head from where she was lying beside Mina, a curious look in her eyes, illuminated by the city of stars Mina had painted on her bedroom ceiling. "When I first came here, you told me - _Okaeri_. Welcome home _._ You say it to the people you love." 

"Ah," Nayeon said, features rearranging into something resembling concern. She was like this, Mina had come to realize, whatever callous front she carried wasn't what was in her heart, and Mina had snuck past that front some time in the past months. "I'm sorry. That was - rude of me. You must have thought I was strange."

Mina turned to lie on her side, arm tucked underneath her, and Nayeon's visage was quiet, her profile soft under the glow of her light. Her chest rose and fell gently, and she turned her head slowly to face Mina, their noses nearly brushing. Mina could swear her heart was about to beat out of her chest.

"It wasn't rude," Mina said. "When I see you come home, it's what I think of saying to you," She said, slowly, watching the realization dawn upon Nayeon's face. And this wasn’t like anything Mina had planned. She’d thought of them, lucid and awake in the light of their living room. Her hand over Nayeon’s. Leaning in to press her cheek to the back of her hand. 

"Mina," Nayeon said, and Mina thought, maybe, if she could offer Nayeon an out instead. If she’d read all the signs wrong.

"I don’t - it doesn’t -" _Do you love me?_ Mina wanted to ask, but maybe Nayeon would be lost forever, with that. “I’m sorry for -”

“Yes,” Nayeon said, before Mina could go further.

“Sorry?”

And if Nayeon noticed Mina crying, she said nothing about it, just pressed even closer to her.

“Yes,” Nayeon said, again, lucid and awake and real before her. Moving closer so Mina didn’t have to, her breath soft over Mina’s lips. “Yes, I love you,” Nayeon said, and Mina felt like the thing behind her lungs was splintering apart, torn with the weight of Nayeon’s eyes, and Nayeon’s mouth, and the way she was looking at Mina now, like she was the shape of waves returning to shore and everything in between.

“Okay,” Mina said, softly, her toes pressed to Nayeon’s shins. An explosion going off in the background, tinny through her laptop speakers. Nayeon’s lips, gentle against hers.

 _Okay,_ Mina thought, as Nayeon pressed her forehead to hers when she pulled back to breathe. _Okay._

/

In the morning, Nayeon was gone. There was wind whipping into her room, the bedsheets pressed neatly against her mattress, and Mina had walked into the hallway, nails sunk deep into the flesh of her hands, and then - and then, there Nayeon was. Standing in the doorway, a bag of groceries in her hand, bathed in morning light. 

“Hi,” she said, softly, holding the door open with her sneaker. Her hair was falling out of her scrunchie and into her face, and she hadn’t worn any makeup before she’d gone out. "You're up early."

“Hi,” Mina returned, the sound of her heartbeat fading from her ears.

“I - Um,” Nayeon tried, laughing, stumbling forward. There were broccolis in her grocery bag, and a whole new bottle of ketchup, and a pack of gummy bears that always ran out every time Mina went to look for them after class. Nayeon fished them out from the bag and palmed them clumsily onto the counter, laughing a little at every new thing that probably seemed like a ridiculous purchase in retrospect.

“These are for you,” Nayeon said, expectantly, but she was looking down at the floor. And something twisted slowly in Mina’s chest before unwinding itself, carefully and quietly. Because she was deciding to be brave, over and over again, until Nayeon didn’t have to be afraid anymore.

“I thought I scared you away,” Mina confesses, and watches Nayeon’s head jerk up.

“I thought you would - I thought you’d regret it. In the morning. So I brought peace offerings. I’m sorry, I should have left a note before I went -”

And Mina had to laugh a little, then. At Nayeon’s bright, earnest gaze, and the song that she'd been singing for her ever since they’d stumbled into each other outside their front door, months and months into the making. She took Nayeon’s hand quietly, a smile in her voice. Her trembling hands steadying as she took Nayeon’s between her own.

“Welcome home, then,” Mina said. Watched something bright and aching pass across Nayeon’s features as she stepped closer to her in the warmth of their living room. 

And what Nayeon said next could have been about their apartment, or it could have been about something else. Mina had all the time in the world to learn it, Nayeon’s hand warm between hers, her lips parting into a soft _O_. Her voice, like the quiet dawn of the morning.

“I’m home.”


End file.
